“The most important thing for nurses to understand about informatics is that it’s not technology. Informatics is not about hard drives, and it’s not even necessarily about programming, and we certainly cannot fix someone’s problems with Outlook. Informatics is about how we’re managing data, information from both a process perspective and a technical perspective to advance health care.” Mollie R. Cummins, PhD, RN, FAAN has been a practicing nurse since 1994 and has made waves in the nursing informatics specialty throughout her career. She holds a doctorate in nursing science and information science from Indiana University, serves as an associate professor of nursing and adjunct professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah, and currently serves as the president of the Utah Nursing Informatics Network. Cummins also recently served as editor the ANI Connection and CIN Plus columns of the journal, CIN: Computers, Informatics, and Nursing.

Nursing Informatics Day is May 12th and takes place during National Nurses Week. She says, “It’s important that nursing informatics celebrate its profession in conjunction with nurses week, especially this year because this year the focus is on safety. IT has been identified as one of the most promising approaches for improving safety in the clinical setting. IT-based strategies, such as barcode medication administration, can really reduce safety inefficiencies and vulnerability in the clinical setting, so it’s very important that nursing informatics be a part of this.”

I had the chance to speak with Cummins over the phone about ways to celebrate Nursing Informatics Day and why nurses in all specialties should pay attention to technology in the workplace.

Listen for the whole interview…

Be sure to stop by our National Nurses Week page for more ways to celebrate, including discounts and giveaways for nurses week! BONUS: Read the current issue of CIN on NursingCenter for free as our featured journal until May 15th.